Honeymoon! (very belated)

I've just booked a flight to Venice with BMI for November (for only £59 return).

Adrian and I have been to Venice together 4 or 5 times but it's one of those cities that we never tire of.
It's a great place to visit out of season and wander about at night when away from St. Mark's square and the main calle it's eerily quiet.
The light, the architecture, the views, the canals and the little squares, the vaporetti.... ah, I wish we were there right now!


(I took this picture when we went there for the Carnival - so no, it's not us!)

"I am your drama queen tonight..."

We have just watched the semi-final of the Eurovision Song Contest.
It was a grand festival of camp!! (all of a sudden, the UK entry doesn't look so camp any more)

It was great fun.
- The Finnish presenter looked like Ugly Betty's Wilhelmina Slater (Vanessa Williams)
- There's probably a shortage of feathers all over Europe, especially thanks to the Danish Drag Queen and the Austrian entry (4 dancers in feathers and sequins coming out of a giant feather AIDS red ribbon)
- lots of catchy tunes, camp routines and costume changes (3 each for Denmark and Norway) and Eurotrash
- the Belarussian singer (male) looks spookily like the late princess Diana!
- the BBC asked people having Eurovision parties to e-mail or text  ... and lots of male couples' names flashed on the screen! (no surprise there!). 


DQ (the Danish entry, singing Drama Queen). Photo: Alain Douit © Eurovision.tv)

We voted for 6 entries (as Adrian said, at £1.50 total it's cheaper than a drink):
Israel (funny and quirky), Denmark (of course!), Hungary (superb voice!!), Norway (catchy Spanish tune), Latvia (opera-like piece sung in Italian), the Netherlands (loved her voice).

Sadly only two of our favourites went through: Hungary and Latvia.

And not only that: some of entries tipped to win did not qualify!! The Swiss Vampires, the eco song from Andorra, Vertigo from Malta, ....
All the qualified singers are from Eastern Europe: I guess that it reflects the fact the there are so many countries there!